1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to methods and system for monitoring an area in space via an image capturing device. More particularly, the present invention relates to monitoring an audience in an area in space.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of human detection technologies are well known in the art. Audience counting systems via video provide a count of people entering and exiting a particular passageway or establishment. For instance, an audience counting system may provide a beam, e.g., an infrared beam, across the passageway to be monitored. As people enter or exit the passageway, the beam is temporarily interrupted, and a counter increases by one increment each time the beam is interrupted, thus counting the number of people that have crossed the beam. The audience counting system detects this interruption and increments or decrements its net internal count of people entering the passageway.
In addition, other human counting systems that report on the direction of travel of people through a particular passageway are available, but these systems tend to be complex and expensive. For example, directional counting systems utilize a foot-activated pressure-sensitive platform at the entry point of the passageway. Based on a pressure profile related to the engagement of an individual's foot with the platform, the system predicts the direction of travel of the individual.
Other human counting systems are coupled with electronic article surveillance systems and an alarm management unit. In such systems, the alarm management unit accepts the electronic article surveillance data signal from the electronic article surveillance system, and a human count signal from the human counting system, for facilitating correlation of electronic article surveillance and human count data.
However, none of these techniques provides an accurate counting per unit of time and space, or an accurate evaluation of the gaze of one or more members, of an audience being monitored by, for example, a video camera.